Best Breakup Songs

[Varelse]

I've lurked around here for ages so I'd love to hear what a lot of what the regulars (or new members) would pick as a great breakup/lost-love type of song. No, I'm not going through a breakup and DON'T need any advice. Just would love to hear some of the different types of tastes in what makes a great breakup/love-lost song and what it means to them. I love me them sad songs. :)

[cosmictraveler]

'Tho we gotta say goodbye for the summer
Darling I promise you this
I'll send you all my love every day in a letter
Sealed with a kiss
Guess it's gonna be a cold lonely summer
But I'll fill the emptiness
I'll send you all my love every day in a letter
Sealed with a kiss
I'll see you in the sunlight
I'll hear your voice everywhere
I'll run to tenderly hold you
But darling you won't be there
I don't wanna say goodbye for the summer
Knowing the love we'll miss
Oh let us make a pledge to meet in September
And seal it with a kiss
Guess it's gonna be a cold lonely summer
But I'll fill the emptiness
I'll send you all my love every day in a letter
Sealed with a kiss

By Bobby Vinton

[Flores]

At first I was afraid.
I was petrified.
I kept thinking I could never live
Without you by my side.
But then I spent so many nights
Just thinking how you'd done me wrong.
I grew strong.
I learned how to get along.

And so you're back from outer space.
I just walked in to find you here
Without that look upon your face.
I should have changed my fucking lock.
I would have made you leave your key
If I'd have known for just one second
You'd be back to bother me.

Oh now go.
Walk out the door.
Just turn around now.
You're not welcome anymore.
Weren't you the one
Who tried to break me with desire?
Did you think I'd crumble?
Did you think I'd lay down and die?
Oh not I.

I will survive.
As long as I know how to love
I know I'll be alive.
I've got all my life to live.
I've got all my love to give.
I will survive.
I will survive.

It took all the strength I had
Just not to fall apart.
I'm trying hard to mend
The pieces of my broken heart.
And I spent oh so many nights
Just feeling sorry for myself.
I used to cry.
But now I hold my head up high.

And you'll see me with somebody new.
I'm not that stupid little person
Still in love with you.
And so you thought you'd just drop by,
And you expect me to be free.
But now I'm saving all my lovin'
For someone who's lovin' me.

Oh now go.
Walk out the door.
Just turn around now.
You're not welcome anymore.
Weren't you the one
Who tried to break me with desire?
Did you think I'd crumble?
Did you think I'd lay down and die?
Oh not I.

I will survive.
As long as I know how to love
I know I'll be alive.
I've got all my life to live.
I've got all my love to give.
I will survive.
I will survive.


Lyrics Cake : I Will Survive

[outlandish]

Bobby whooooooo??

[Esoteric]

Jimi Hendrix, for the crazy type bf's

Hey joe, where you goin' with that gun of your hand
Hey joe, i said where you goin' with that gun in your hand, oh
I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady
You know i caught her messin' 'round with another man
Yeah, i'm goin' down to shoot my old lady
You know i caught her messin' 'round with another man
Huh! and that ain't cool
Huh hey hoe, i heard you shot your mamma down
You shot her down now
Hey joe, i heard you shot your lady down
You shot her down in the groud yeah!
Yeah!
Yes, i did, i shot her
You know i caught her messin' round messin' round town
Huh, yes i did i shot her
You know i caught my old lady messin' 'round town
And i gave her the gun
And i shot her
Alright
Shoot her one more time again baby!
Yeah!
Oh dig it
Oh alright
Hey joe,
Where you gonna run to now where you gonna go
Hey joe, i said
Where you gonna run to now where you gonna go
I'm goin' way down south
Way down to mexico way
Alright
I'm goin' way down south
Way down where i can be free
Ain't no one gonna find me
Ain't no hang-man gonna
He ain't gonna put a rope around me
You better believe it right now
I gotta go now
Hey, joe
You better run on down
Goodbye everybody
Hey hey joe

[Fraggle Rocker]

... by the Dixie Chicks. Especially with the video!

If you're not familiar with it, it's established within the first verse that "Earl's gotta die." Dennis Franz of NYPD Blue plays Earl's corpse throughout the video.

[ripleofdeath]

Esoteric
thats a homocide song

Fraggle Rocker
dude
whats a song about someone being dead that is about to die (which makes no sence at all)
got to do with a relationship break up?

best break-up song for me depends on the person who i broke up with
...situational-like!... :)
would one song define each break-up...?
nope! absolutely not

cool thread though! :)

[wesmorris]

Originally posted by Flores
Lyrics Cake : I Will Survive

Flores... a Cake fan?!? Groovy.

Hey they didn't write that song, though I like their version better than the original.

Cake is the bomb!

Second greatest band in the world! ;)

All pale in comparison to the D!

[Varelse]

Originally posted by wesmorris

All pale in comparison to the D!

Right on! But then that's kind of obvious isn't it?

[Fraggle Rocker]

Originally posted by ripleofdeath
Fraggle Rocker, dude, whats a song about someone being dead that is about to die (which makes no sense at all) got to do with a relationship breakup?Sorry, I tried to make sense out of it for people who weren't familiar with either the song or the video, but all I did was confuse.

The song is about a breakup: a woman who is so emotionally abused by her Neanderthal husband that her two best friends come in from out of town to give her moral support in breaking up with him. But once the old high-school threesome is back together, they realize that just walking out, or even filing for divorce, or even getting a court order, is just not good enough for bad old boy Earl. So, "Earl's gotta die." The rest of the song deals with that eventuality in an amusing way.

The video doesn't track the lyrics very carefully. (What a surprise, what video does?) We never even get to see Earl alive, just the girls wreaking wacky havoc as they try to figure out what to do with the body, and Dennis Franz doing a really good (and good-natured) job of acting like a dead asshole.

It's a breakup song in the tradition of "Hey Joe." It's just that this time the gal wins.

[Fraggle Rocker]

I'll go out on a limb and nominate "Me and Bobbie McGee" by Kris Kristofferson. I realize that what I'm about to launch into might not relate to you younger folks, but it is history so perhaps it will be interesting if not touching.

The song is about the breakup of a relationship of course. Bobbie McGee "slips away" and leaves the boy sad. But it's also an allegory about the end of the 1960s. (That misnamed 12- or 13-year era that began with the first Beatles song and ended when we pulled out of Vietnam.)

You boomers who hang out here and even the few guys my age know what I'm talking about. We would still be out there, thirty years later, ridin' our motorcycles, gettin' high all the time, sleepin' in crash pads, carryin' picket signs denouncing the Iraq War, and toolin' a few leather belts when we needed some cash. Boys can remain boys for an amazingly long time.

"From the coal mines of Kentucky to the California sun (implying the life of an itinerant farm worker a la Steinbeck as well as a place where you can survive winter without a roof over your head)." This guy drags Bobbie all over the continent, living like stereotyped gypsies, picking up just enough pay and charity to stay alive.

So what brought that to a halt? Women have to grow up. They have no choice. Their bodies drag them into adulthood. Sure, with modern chemistry they can put off having babies and with modern culture they can act just as immature as we can, but the reality is that they just don't. It's a Venus/Mars thing. You never hear a man talking about his "biological clock ticking," but the vast majority of women sooner or later enter adulthood.

"Somewhere near Salinas, Lord, I let her slip away, lookin' for the home I hope she'll find."

Bobbie eventually had enough of the wandering life. Her biological clock was ticking. She wanted to settle down and have a more conventional family life. Ergo, the 1960s came to a crashing halt. No more hippie chicks for the hippie guys to hang with, so the hippie guys had to grow up too.

This song is not just about the breakup of a relationship, it's about the breakdown of an entire lifestyle.

Don't ask me to defend the hippies, I actually finished college, got a responsible job, and was married throughout most of the so-called 1960s. (The only part of the life I described earlier that I actually experienced was the motorcycle. Nine weeks breezing around Europe on a BMW.) But it was a unique happy and sad, intellectual and stoopid time to live through and I can't help being wistful about its demise.

It's a sad footnote that although probably a hundred male singers covered this song, the only female who did a decent job of it was Janis Joplin. A woman who absolutely refused to grow up, and was so determined to avoid having the opportunity to betray that youthful decision and change her mind later, that she drugged herself to death while she was still a young hippie chick.

[Xev]

The song is about a breakup: a woman who is so emotionally abused by her Neanderthal husband that her two best friends come in from out of town to give her moral support in breaking up with him.

Because solving your problems is nowhere near as fun as indulging in impotent revenge fantasies over being such a ugly cow that you can't leave a man who mistreats you.


Bobbie eventually had enough of the wandering life. Her biological clock was ticking. She wanted to settle down and have a more conventional family life. Ergo, the 1960s came to a crashing halt. No more hippie chicks for the hippie guys to hang with, so the hippie guys had to grow up too.

Only men are stupid enough to think anyone would think their loss of an easy lay is tragic.
Somehow the gender manages to become way more vindictive than women could ever imagine. It's weird.

Does make for some good music -
My Dying Bride, "Unreleased Bitterness"

[dr. ski wampas]

boys dont cry - the cure

I would say I’m sorry
If I thought that it would change your mind
But I know that this time
I’ve said too much
Been too unkind
I try to laugh about it
Cover it all up with lies
I try and
Laugh about it
Hiding the tears in my eyes
’cause boys don’t cry
Boys don’t cry

I would break down at your feet
And beg forgiveness
Plead with you
But I know that
It’s too late
And now there’s nothing I can do

So I try to laugh about it
Cover it all up with lies
I try to
Laugh about it
Hiding the tears in my eyes
’cause boys don’t cry

I would tell you
That I loved you
If I thought that you would stay
But I know that it’s no use
That you’ve already
Gone away

Misjudged your limits
Pushed you too far
Took you for granted
I thought that you needed me more

Now I would do most anything
To get you back by my side
But I just
Keep on laughing
Hiding the tears in my eyes
’cause boys don’t cry
Boys don’t cry
Boys don’t cry

[Varelse]

I guess I'll add the inspiration for this thread after I listened to it recently after a few years. Such a brilliantly sad song.

Dream Theater
Space Dye Vest

Falling through pages of martens on angels
Feeling my heart pull west
I saw the future dressed as a stranger
Love in a space-dye vest

Love is an act of blood and i'm bleeding
A pool in the shape of a heart
Beauty projection in the reflection
Always the worst way to start

Now that you're gone i'm trying to take it
Learning to swallow the rage
Found a new girl i think we can make it
As long as she stays on the page

This is not how i want it to end
And i'll never be open again

There's no one to take my blame
If they wanted to
There's nothing to keep me sane
And it's all the same to you
There's nowhere to set my aim
So i'm everywhere
Never come near me again
Do you really think i need you

I'll never be open again, i could never be open again.
I'll never be open again, i could never be open again.

And i'll smile and i'll learn to pretend
And i'll never be open again
And i'll have no more dreams to defend
And i'll never be open again

This is what Kevin Moore (the author) had to say about it:

"It was inspired by... I was looking through a clothing catalog and saw a picture of a girl modeling this piece of clothing called a space-dye vest. And, so, I fell in love with her [laughs] for some strange reason & so the minute I did that, the minute I was just like obsessed with this person, I was like, 'why am I doing that?' & I noticed that I was doing it a lot lately. And I think the prime reason that I was doing that, and this is what I figured out at the time, was that I had just come out of a relationship where I'd gotten dumped, basically, and so I think the situation was that I wasn't finished giving all that I was ready to give, so I was just, like, throwing it around, you know, just aiming it in different directions. It was a total case of projection. And this song is just trying to sort it out & just kind of admitting that I'm just kind of lost. So it's kind of a dark song. It was very cathartic though."

[ripleofdeath]

i must say i find it quite fascinating that there are a few different
concepts of the basic idea of "the break up"
well...
is a break-up when you decide to leave someone
or when you have been left by someone
or you have decided to stop being emotionaly involved with people
or when you decide to kill someone
or when someone betrays your trust
or when you betray someones trust

maybe we have a little idea of what the relationship is by the association of the song
... assuming it is one that directly reminds you of "the break-up"

why would you not choose a love ballad?
ask your self that one! :D

[chuck u farley]

Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
I'll go out on a limb and nominate "Me and Bobbie McGee" by Kris Kristofferson.

Hi Fraggle;
I hadn't thought of that song, but hey, great choice. I really enjoyed reading your comments about that period. Alas, one can only be young once. My advice to all of you here who are in college is to have a lot of fun now. Carpe diem. Eventually you'll be an old fart with responsibility.

Some of my nominations for breakup songs. A lot come from country and western:
"Crazy Arms" Ray Price
"I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You" Hank Williams
"I Fall To Pieces" Patsy Cline, and later, Linda Ronstadt
"Cien Anos" Thalia (an old Mariachi song)
"Asi Fue" Isabel Pantoja (written by Juan Gabriel)
"Just Once" Lionel Richie
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" Righteous Brothers
"Te Acordaras De Mi" Lucero
"There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight" Hank Williams
"Long, Long Time" Linda Ronstadt

[Lord_Tigersloth]

I have an odd feeling this might cheer me up :bugeye: although I am not actually sure about that....

The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin
That's what I said.
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read.
My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo.
I love to sink her with my pink torpedo.
Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about bum cakes,
My gal's got 'em.
Big bottom,
Drive me out of my mind.
How can I leave this behind?
I saw her on monday, twas my lucky bun day
You know what I mean.
I love her each weekday, each velvety cheekday
You know what I mean.
My love gun's loaded and she's in my sights
Big game's waiting there inside her tights
Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about mud flaps
My gal's got 'em.
Big bottom
Drive me out of my mind.
How can I leave this behind?
:D